To the Editor: In April 2009, a 47-year-old woman in Saint-Jeannet in southern France reported stomach aches, abdominal bloating, and occasional diarrhea. Blood analyses found an increased eosinophil level (8,800 cells/mm 3), which represented 52% of 16,900 leukocytes/mm 3. Parasitologic examinations for helminths were conducted with 6 fecal specimens obtained during June 9– July 2, 2009. Analy...

BACKGROUND & AIMS Hyperplasia of mucin-secreting intestinal goblet cells accompanies a number of enteric infections, including infections by nematode parasites. Nevertheless, the precise role of mucins in host defense in nematode infection is not known. We investigated the role of the mucin (Muc2) in worm expulsion and host immunity in a model of nematode infection. METHODS Resistant (BALB/c,...

Intestinal nematodes or roundworms (aka soil-transmitted helminths or STHs) cause great disease. They infect upwards of two billion people, leading to high morbidity and a range of health problems, especially in infected children and pregnant women. Development of resistance to the two main classes of drugs used to treat intestinal nematode infections of humans has been reported. To fight STH i...

Parasitic nematodes show levels of genetic diversity comparable to other taxa, but the functional consequences of this are not understood. Thus, a large body of theoretical work highlights the potential consequences of parasite genetic diversity for the epidemiology of parasite infections and its possible implications for the evolution of host and parasite populations. However, few relevant emp...

The phase II detoxification system glutathione transferase (GST) is associated with the establishment of parasitic nematode infections within the gastrointestinal environment of the mammalian host. We report the functional analysis of a GST from an important worldwide parasitic nematode of small ruminants, Haemonchus contortus. This GST shows limited activity with a range of classical GST subst...

We analyzed 320 clinical samples of parasitic infections submitted to the Department of Environmental Biology and Medical Parasitology, Hanyang University from January 2004 to June 2011. They consisted of 211 nematode infections, 64 trematode or cestode infections, 32 protozoan infections, and 13 infections with arthropods. The nematode infections included 67 cases of trichuriasis, 62 of anisak...

Abstract Host behaviour can be influenced by parasitic risk and infection through a variety of direct indirect mechanisms. We expect individuals expressing different phenotypes to also differ in the ways their is altered parasites. used land snail Cepaea nemoralis , species with various shell colour morphs differing physiology, as model study link between parasite response individual variation....

Onchocerca lupi, a nematode parasite infecting dogs and cats with a hitherto unknown arthropod vector, is also being recognised as a parasite also responsible for human eye infections. Here we describe a case of human eye infection diagnosed molecularly by nematode 12S rDNA PCR in a German patient who had travelled to Tunisia and Turkey. The patient recovered after treatment with antibiotic and...